■ Tht
Lord I
this thou niayest learn Shepherd is (regarded) as spake and the world wa
believed'in t/ie Lard and (Ek IS^y. Thensanj Mu!
'ses. If they be- ie\o in the Lord. From believes ill the faithful in the word of Him who is faith whereby Israel s|iake and the world was ; for because srael believed in tlie Lord, the Holy Spirit abode upon them, g the song : for inimediatel.\' after the words : they - ' -■ ' ■ " - ,,■--- • follow the words hraet this song to the Lord. In like iiianner tbou flndcst that .\braham our Father inherited this world and the world to come only by the merit of faitli (njvS) whereby he believed in the Lord, as it is said (Gn 168) : And he believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for ngnteou^ness. , . . R. Neheiniah says : Whoever receives unto himself one precept (of the Law) in true faith (n;Cg3) is worthy for the Holy Spirit to abide upon him ; for so we find in the case of our fathers that because the\ believed in the Lord they were deemed worthy that the Hol\- .Spirit should abide upon them, and tliey uttered tlie song. For it is said : they believed in God and'in Moses IJis serrani ; and (immediately afterwards) it is said : then sang Moses and the children o.f Israel, etc. And so tliou findest in the case of Abraham that he in- herited this world and the world to come solely by merit of faith (njos rH3|3), whereby he believed in the Lord, as it is said (156); Abraham belieeed, etc. And in the same way we find in the case of Moses, David, and Deborah that they (by reason of faith) sang a song, and the Holy Spirit abode upon them. And in like manner thou findest that solely by Israel redeemed from Eg\i)t, as I' ' " ' ' " iid(Ps :
lieved, etc. And f faithful, raakin..' the righteous ii [ righteous natio<<, this gate all tin 921): /( is a to sing praisr^ ' Thy loving-kiioln, the nights, vith
on r,f th(
. . of faith
1 said : And the people, be- 31-») : The Lord preserveth the faith of the fathers. ... Of : Ojien ye the gates that the !■< .faith, may enter in. Into •^■;2) enter. David sings (Ps ilinnks unto the Lord, and " V ;f I!i;ih: to show forth
' rini faithfulness in
■nnrn and vith the
' './). For Thou, O
. 'tiid in the opera-
" : ;;■■■ >LLU.-i- Mf his joy
. I ) ' '^ .h..ivr,l in this
Jehoshaphat (J ( and went forth i ■weixjt forth Jcho< Judah, and ye u Lord your God. nj His prophets, "n (Jer53): OLur.i. 2J): The right,
1 Philo is substantially
, faith . 'The
Jewand theChri-tiaa .\|- -1! I :f
t The original.;, II i,. -, , i, u, \\ . i- The Mekhilta is i. l>:U:iklM.' mMr,, in its present furiii tn.iu liic lir-t century, but containing' iiiucli c-irli for illustrating early Jewish ideas 1 Apostolic age.
} So the words of the original (njDK an'ia niljia) are under stood here. ' Bride ' (■i?5) is a mystical designation of the Holy Spirit or Shekinah,
FAITH
569
betroth thee iinto me far eeer ; yea, I n'ill betroth thee unto me with faith (njIDKZ). Great is faith before God, for on account of faith it is thai the Holy Spirit abides (upon Israel),' etc.
In the early Rabbinical literature ' faith ' ^vavers in meaning between 'belief and Miilclity (to the Law).' The former is prominent in Ihr A/'nctdi/jJuc of Baruch (1st cent, a.d.) Unt the latter is char- acteristic of the later period, 'faith' and 'works' being co-ordinated or combined.* 'Faith' (■ij5d?<) in the sense of fixed dogmatic belief is quite late in Hebrew literature (niediseval times).
In Rabbinical Hebrew, besides the nouns njlDN, nj^N, a Hiphil-substaiitival form .^JC^!^ ( = Aram. NnuD'n) occurs (Tosefta Baba bathra v. 8). For the Gospel-expression cXjj-o- ma-Ttii a Heb. parallel occurs in Mekhilta (on E.>c l.^i) -noina niDN 'those lacking faith." So in the Pal. Tarif. (on Nu 11^-) (inUD'n "IDnlD ('Then rose up those who had lacked faith and gathered the iiuails,' etc.) ; and Gen. Itali. § 32, .ijIDX ';¥P ' men of little faith ' (an e.xact parallel). In tlie Mishn'a, Sola ix. 12, the decline of the world is ascribed to the disappearance of ' men of faith ' (njEft •:?;)<).
i. ' Faith ' in the Gospels. — The terms for ' faith ' and ' believe ' in contrast with those of the OT are characteristic of the whole NT lan- guage, and occur almost entirely with a directly religious connotation. In Philo the religious con- tent of the terms had decidedly been heightened, but suffered from a certain vagueness in the con- ception of the object of faith, due to his trans-
cendental philosophy. Faith, in Philo's conception, rests rather upon the abstract Divinitj; than upoi the personal God of grace and salvation, and ii
rather the fruit and crown of righteousness than its antecedent. In the NT it is all-important to di.stinguish the different connotations of the terms according as the object is (a) God ; (6) the promises of God ; (e) Christ ; (d) some particular utterance, claim, or promise of (jod or Christ. ' The last of these senses is the one most common in the Syn- optic Gospels.' t